


Cut Both Ways

by pearlydewdrop



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Confessions, Internal Conflict, Letters, Multi, Unsent letters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2018-12-05 01:16:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11567283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearlydewdrop/pseuds/pearlydewdrop
Summary: You were both gentle and passionate all at the same time, and I was craving human touch, someone to reach out to.My first instinct was to shake you until you woke up, until your eyes had lost their foggy glaze. But instead I let myself be tantalised by your feather light touch.I kind of hate myself for that now.





	1. Yours Apologetically

Chapter One.

Georgetown, Washington

September 1993

Dear Mulder,

My first confession is this... I probably will never have the guts to give you this letter. Knowing myself, I won't even bring up what happened between us that night in Bellefleur, and pray that you won't remember and that it won't happen again (not because I didn't enjoy it but because it shouldn't have happened, not like it did anyway).

I was assigned to be your partner on The X-Files, your colleague. Having sex was never supposed to be part of the deal, but here I am writing you a letter that you won't ever read, to tell you what happened between us so hopefully I can get past this and just be your co-worker.

At first, I didn't believe you when you told me about your sleeping disorder. I thought it was just a joke, some ploy to make me request a transfer on the grounds of my partner being crazy. I thought you just made it up to protect your precious X-Files and to avoid having a sceptical partner, to get me off your back so that your life's work would not be debunked.

At least I believed so until I found you hovering above me, your bare chest brushing against the fabric of my red dressing gown. Your eyes were open, hazel irises dilated with lust but still a little glassy, as though you were there but somehow...vacant.

That was when I knew you were dead asleep and that you hadn't lied to me. I had studied sleeping disorders in medical school and recognised what was happening almost immediatly.

Sleep sex, or sexsomnia, is a condition in which a person will engage in sexual activities while asleep. Your condition falls within the broad class of sleep disorders known as parasomnias.

But my guess is you probably know all that and more. I guess I'm just trying to distract myself with medical jargon. The thing is Mulder, I never thought I would end up having...relations with a man who suffered from it.

Not that I regret you.

Well... maybe I do, but not in that way.

You were gentle and passionate all at the same time, and I was craving human touch, someone to reach out to. My first instinct was to shake you until you woke up, until your eyes were clear and you knew what you were doing with your hands. God damnit, Don't get me started on what you did with your hands.

I ignored my initial reaction though and I leaned into your touch. I let you touch me and let myself touch you. I let you in in more ways than one that night, Mulder and I'm not sure how I feel about that just yet.

Looking back on that night now, I should have woken you up or at least tried to. It was wrong what we did, what I did, in so many ways. You trusted me enough to tell me about your sister's abduction and about your condition. I should have treated you better, I hardly know you and I believe that. I hardly knew you and I let the consummation happen anyway. You're a good man Fox Mulder and what we did can't happen again...not like that!

Yet, your weight above me felt too damn good and I would be lying to myself if I said I hadn't been sexually attracted to you right from the moment we met!

Our differences, they blazed, and I was drawn to you like a moth to a bonfire. You are the brightest thing in the room, Fox Mulder.

Arguing with you...it felt like fire, the tension they seemed to create...almost sensual. You make me flare up in frustration and, in turn, your belief and determination burns with a raging passion.

Sleeping with you was similar...only expressed with our bodies rather than our minds.

On one hand, the tactile side was the closest I've come to an almost spiritual experience, your body against mine, skin on skin. It was something else.

Your touch brought my whole body to life, made me feel things I had almost forgotten how to feel. You gave me more highs in one night than I ever had with any previous lover. You fit inside me perfectly and we balanced each other out, just like we seem to do when working side by side on the field.

On the flip side, there was a carnal rhythmic element to our intercourse. Even now, I can recall your graceful but powerful movements as you gave me one earth moving orgasm after another. I can almost remember your every movement perfectly in a way that almost leads me to believe that I had, for those few hours, adopted your photographic memory.

Even now working with you down in our quiet secluded basement can sometimes be a challenge when my mind wanders momentarily away from the paranormal to what transpired between us...even now, as I write to you, you make me wet with desire.

Your needy passionate thrusts inside me somehow sent me over an edge I never knew existed. Your large enticing warm hands and your alluring pouty lips seem to have been everywhere, my breasts, my neck, my back, against my backside, my stomach and lower, lower, lower, lower.

So much lower that you and your luscious labials almost drove me insane.

In that moment, I felt almost fit to combust from the sensual feelings you were evoking. Mulder, your erotic touch created an unquenchable inferno deep within me, one that surged through my body like electricity to every cell, every membrane, every atom.

You are a drug, Fox Mulder, a drug deadlier that Cocaine and heroin combined, and I fear you may have damn well made me a junkie.

But it was all wrong, all immoral, all so very very wrong. I had sex with you and you were asleep. You felt amazing and you made me feel amazing but you weren't there, not really. I feel like I have exploited you, manipulated you, took advantage of your parasomnic disorder and it's even harder for me when you tell me that you want to trust me because I want the same trust in exchange for mine.

Damnit Mulder, why was it so easy for you to turn me on when you weren't even awake to do so?

The logical explanation: I hadn't had sex in over two years since joinging the FBI. After all, I was a joining one of the biggest boy's clubs in the nation and had behaved accordingly from the get go. I knew the rule book to the letter and was determined to avoid each and every no no, both obvious and implied like the plague. So, I had made it very clear that my male colleagues treat me like they would if I was one of the men, and not someone made with two XX chromosomes; And, you did from the moment we met which I respected about you immediately.

The illogical explanation: Maybe I like you as more than a partner... But it doesn't matter even if I did, you and I would never ever work out, or even happen in the first place. We are too different you and I. You have your crusade, your fight to find your sister and If you knew me better you would know that I would never ever stand in the way of that but; you would also know that I would never want to be in a relationship where I come second... not after Daniel anyway. It's too messy and only ever ends in heartbreak.

My last confession, Mulder, and I promise this will be the last. I've been known as 'the ice queen' every since I was named the best shot in my class back when I was in the academy. I had always relished the moniker as it had the power to ward off male agents like no man's business.

I don't understand how this happened, Mulder and I'm damn well sure that I'm not 100% responsible for it, but somehow you made the ice queen melt and I don't understand how or why it took you to do it. Hell, I'm not even sure if I like the fact you are able to bring out that side in me, a side of me that would let my sleeping partner into my bed.

From now on I'll just be your partner, just Agent Scully. I'll watch your back and you'll watch mine. You'll come up with a theory and I'll knock it down. That is how it has to be. What happened between us can't happen again. No reruns and no revivals.

Just partners and maybe someday, when I have all this crap sorted out, friends.

No more.

Yours apologetically,

Scully.


	2. Yours in Conflict

Chapter 2

Georgetown, Washington

April 1994

Dear Mulder,

I didn't think I would be writing to you again like this. Surely, we're friends by now and I should be able to talk to you face to face about this ... about what's been happening between us over and over, since our first case.

But the words always get stuck in my throat, keeping me silent.

No matter what nocturnal boundaries I set for us, you still get to me. Call me an addict compelled to take another hit from your sensual touch, passionate kisses, and erotic thrusts taking me higher and higher; and, here I thought I had more willpower and good self-control, but morally I am no better than a junkie wanting one more high before she gives up her drug completely. This recklessness never occurred with any of my past lovers or sexual relationships which confuses and frustrates me all at the same time.

Maybe because our relationship isn't like any other I've ever had in the past, platonic or romantic. After all, I wasn't lying when I told you that I wouldn't put myself on the line for anybody but you. It's true Mulder, the things I do with and for you, I would never do them for anyone else.

I feel like you've already claimed me, but the irony is you don't even know it. I'm not just talking sexually, but you have this hold on me, the source of which I can't quite put my finger on yet. For example, I follow you and work with you, yet I'm still skeptical of many of the things your fight for, especially some of the ones you fight for so relentlessly.

How do our escapades continue to occur? I let your sleep walking form enter my adjoining hotel room or I 'accidentally' fall asleep in your room. I do it because I want to feel your stimulating touch, you're my crack that I need to feel alive, as well as, experience your intoxicating essence again.

Our nightly romps are comforting, considering how dangerous our line of work can often be, and to know that your heart is still beating soundly is reassuring even at its quickened pace during our nightly activities.

Just know that after our first case I didn't want anything to happen between us again, yet I keep finding myself returning to you (no matter how wrong it is). Sometimes I even wish that your eyes were clear and you knew what you were doing to me; and, what I was doing to you.

I heard you talk in your sleep on our case out in New Jersey, only moments after you had slipped out of me. I was lying against your sticky chest, exhausted out of my mind from both our indiscretions and from another long day running after you as you were chasing that 'beast woman.' And guess what, you said my name, I heard you and I don't know what to make of it.

I mean, since then it's become somewhat of a pattern. Sometimes you speak generically like you did the first time, calling me beautiful and all the other right things; but, more times than not now, you'll say my name, and not 'Scully' (like when you're awake). You'll call me 'Dana', Mulder.

When we're in the field you'll call me 'Scully' all day long, because I'm just your partner and hopefully now you consider me your friend. I'm the person who's your gun totting, scalpel slicing, got your back colleague, not thinking about what your chest feels like against mine and what your hardened member feels like pressed against my thigh as your fingers play with my clit.

However, on the flip side, when you're sleeping, I become 'Dana.' The woman who wants you and who you want back. I guess you could call me your secret love, I suppose.

That's why a shiver ran through me when you called me by my given name after you learned of my father's death (a waking reminder of what we have in the dark).

'Were you awake?' "Were you talking to me in your sleep?' 'Are your dreams during our nightly romps vivid, just like my hazy nighttime reality?' These are all questions I'm too afraid to ask you, partially because I don't want the answers.

I know the truth is all that matters too you, but that is a reality I am not ready to share. I'm not ready for a change like that in our lives, and I'm not sure if it would even be welcomed by either of us.

Sometimes I get a glimpse of what the whole story may look like when I catch you watching me in the corner of my eye, or when I'm sitting opposite of you, but more lately than not, when you stand at the morgues entrance watching me perform another autopsy on one of our latest victims from another X-Files (a.k.a., crazy cases that are only fit for 'Mr. & Mrs. Spooky' down in the basement).

I know you think you're being sly, but I know you watch me, because you get this faraway look in your eyes, like you're remembering an impassable dream, like you're grappling for the remaining sensual thread you felt in some far-off place, to piece it all together like only your profiler mind would know how.

How do I know this? You get flustered and won't look me straight in the eye, once I glance up. So, I know, Mulder, but part of me wishes I didn't.

Having something between us, something more than friends and partners, would never work out for reasons I have described in my last letter. We have our work on the X-Files to attend to, and you have your quest to find your sister, something I have willingly been pulled into.

I know, finding her is your soul purpose in life right now, and I respect that wholeheartedly. I also respect your determination and belief that you two will be reunited one day. God knows Mulder, I get that perseverance and I'd be lying if I said I didn't admire it in you.

Then there's me, I don't need to be in a romantic relationship right now either. I know how 'messy' they can be, and I would choose our partnership/friendship over it any day.

It's just the fact that you end up in my bed at least three nights a week that complicates matters. There's a part of me that wants to push you to a comfortable distance, going back to the polar opposite FBI partners, the ones we were for the majority of our case back in Bellefleur.

But then another part of me, the part that is often in control lately, still lusts after you and your Godforsaken touch. The inner vixen, who lets your sleeping form back into my bed when you come knocking on our adjoining door to our hotel rooms.

Then there's another part of me who wants to become tone deaf to your voice when you mumble my name in the throes of passion or later against my hair before you leave.

But I don't, even though it would be easier and less painful for both of us to do so.

On another note, I have tried to date other men since meeting you, I really have. My friend Ellen, even insisted on setting me up with one of the single fathers she knew, but I'll have you know that it was completely futile. In the dating world, he'd be considered a perfect specimen to catch, and last year I'd have been interested, until you.

His character flaw, he wasn't you Mulder, and that was unforgivable. The bottom line, he wasn't you!

So, now I have come to the realization that, as long as we are partnered, no other man will stand a chance because each and every one will fall short intellectually, physically, and sexually.

As you can see, Mulder, as much as I appear on the outside as a well-controlled person with a twist of uptightness and professionalism and a no-nonsense attitude, on the inside I'm really a mess (not that I could tell you that in person).

In short, I don't know what to do anymore. It gets more confusing every day, Mulder. Each day I feel like I am getting closer to telling you, but then I immediately pull back and keep it tucked away from you. It's a dirty secret, kept between me and your subconscious sexsomnia self. Unfortunately, you don't recall our last romp until the next night at another scummy motel room.

I still feel wrong about keeping this weird aspect of our relationship from you. After all, you are my partner and I would trust you with my life in a heartbeat. I just hope you would trust me as well.

I hate keeping this secret from you, every time you look at me it feels like a jab to my chest (which is definitely saying something considering how many hours a day I spend with you and needing to keep eye contact the majority of the time too).

The feeling of guilt, guilt that I am exploiting our relationship and betraying your trust, sits in the pit of my stomach every day. It churns inside of me like a monster growing upwards into my airways. It grows larger and stronger after another round of sex when you either collapse on me or I on you, as we writhe in pleasure. Sometimes the lung pressure is so great, it's impossible to breath at times.

It feels wrong doing it this way, Mulder. You deserve so much more.

But can I really tell you now? Can I do it without losing your friendship and trust forever? Or without destroying our partnership that seems to be working so efficiently, now?

Or is it just me being selfish because I don't want to lose you?

Can I keep my door locked at night and let us go back to the way we were supposed to be, they way you think we still are (as far as I can see, anyway)?

Yours in conflict,

Scully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another massive shout out and thank you to NikitaKaralis for all her advice relating to this story and for betaing. I really really appreciate it.
> 
> If anyone reading wanting to write a review and tell me what you think whether it's good or constructive. I'd love to hear from you, truly.
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


	3. Yours Truthfully

Arlington, Washington

October 1994

Dear Scully

I never meant for this to happen. I never meant for your family to get involved like they have and I most certainly never wished from my quest to cause you or any of them pain.

Do you see how many times I have already used the personal pronoun 'I'? Four times and we're only getting started! It just proves my own selfishness. It's plain and simple, Scully; I don't deserve you or your loyalty. Not after this anyway.

You and I have something in common now, something that I wish we didn't. I know what it's like to loose a sister to...them. I know what the pain is like, how all consuming your need is to find the person you grew up with.

I know because I have felt that way for the last twenty one years, but I damn well wish you didn't.

You know Scully, as a kid I used to keep a tally on my bedroom wall of the days that had gone past since I last saw my sister. Even then I was determined to find her, powerless against my own relentless belief that she was alive.

I see the same helpless desperation in your usually electric but now weary blue eyes that I have seen every time I have looked in the mirror since I was twelve.

I wish I didn't. I wish Melissa hadn't been taken the way Sam was and I hope that your God, the one I see both you and your mother turn to now, will answer your prayers.

We were up until all hours last night going over Melissa's, Duane Barry's and any other even half relevant case file we could dig up down in the basement.

We couldn't do much just then but you told me that doing something that may prove utile helped keep your mind off of the things that were unfortunately out of our control, at least until we get some proper lead on Melissa's whereabouts.

I don't blame you, I feel the same way every fucking day. It's probably why my entire life revolves around The X-Files. It's as if I distract myself with someone else's supernatural and unexplainable mysteries to come to terms with and solve my own personal ones.

So sat with you on the well worn couch in my apartment well into the night as we searched tirelessly for some clue as to where your sister was taken to. Helping you now is the least I can do. I was te one who dragged you into all of this after all.

At some point near daybreak, your eyes involuntarily began to droop. I was able to stay somewhat awake but my concentration was beginning to slip, having read the same paragraph of a case file on an alien abduction nearly fifteen years ago over and over again for what felt like a thousand times.

I vaguely remember telling you to take the bed and that I'll take the couch and instead of our usual argument of equality on the subject, you simply nodded and took my advice, letting the whole matter slide until morning.

Not long after you left, I felt myself begin to drift off too. Exhaustion finally overcoming me, like tidal waves consuming the shoreline and I was out like a light.

I usually don't remember the crazy erotic dreams that I have been prone to for years as a result of my...slightly embarrassing parasomnic sleeping disorder, but that night I did and it only made me feel worse.

I dreamt about you that night, Scully, and not in a friendly, platonic kind of way. The light I saw you in wasn't even in a purely physical way like what I can recall from my many remaining snippets of sexual dreams.

I made love to you, Scully. I made love to you to comfort you after all we've been through and in my head, as bizarre as it may sound, you liked it.

But it wasn't real, none of it. It was all in my head. There was a wall firmly between us and I assume, considering you know of my disorder, a locked door.

Certain things I can't shake though, my heart, my brain and my photographic memory would never allow it. When you came below me, a little teary eyed with exhaustion from our long emotionally wrenching day, you were the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. A sight I have imprinted into my mind and am finding hard to escape.

I know saying this makes this while situation even more fucked up than it already is, so I won't. I'll never breathe a word of this to you Scully, I won't even write down the details of my dream because I know it will never happen.

We are friends you and I, and I often feel selfish for having just that much of you, considering all I have put you through and all you have lost in the last two years, both professionally and personally. I don't deserve it.

I also know that you probably wouldn't leave me anyway. The selfish part of me is glad of this but that doesn't mean that the truth of it doesn't make me incessantly guilty.

That being said, I still don't let you go, I'm not sure I know how to. I have never told you that even though my quest may very well be worth my life, it sure as hell isn't worth yours and your family's too.

I don't tell you because I need you with me, because you're the only one in my life that I can trust, the only one who hasn't turned their back on me over and over again. Your rationality and logical thinking grounds me and stops me from floating away like some godforsaken human helium balloon.

I value your friendship and your loyalty over everything, Scully and I would take a bullet for you in a heartbeat. As selfish as I may be about having you by my side, I hope you know that much.

I know that you know the stakes in a job like ours, that you accepted them when you graduated first in your class at the academy and started working on the field, causing our paths to overlap.

Shortly into our working partnership I'm certain you realised that our job isn't like any other. It's not just our own lives we are putting green on the line for the truth and the greater good but the mere existence of everything we hold dear, past present and future.

Right when we think we've caught up with...them, they already seem to be two steps ahead and once we think we have them surpassed, they jump up behind us, shoot us in the ass and wave the truth like a victory banner right over our heads, just mere inches out of reach.

My only hope is that you won't be still looking for your sister in twenty years time as I am. I want to believe that you will find Melissa, just as I want to believe that I will find answers as to what became of Samantha.

Until then, I hope you know that I will do everything I can to deserve your presence and companionship in my life.

Some days, I find you completely infuriating, just as I assume you find me; but you have saved me more times and in more ways than I can count. I'll always love you in every possible way for that, both in ways I can show you and in ways I can't.

You're the best partner and friend I've ever had. Some days I reckon I should send good old Blevins a bouquet of daisies and a thank you card for pairing us up, at least before I remember that's he's a complete dickhead.

Yours truthfully,

Mulder


	4. Yours Always

Georgetown, Washington

November 1996

Goddamnit, Mulder. I can't do this anymore.

I feel as though I am living my life as a well worn and well stretched rope in an unending game of tug of war. I am torn between the conflict that has been brewing inside me for the last three years and my overwhelming desire for your boundlessly addictive touch.

On one hand, you are my partner by day. We work well together, almost like two parts of the one supernatural crime fighting/alien and conspiracy hunting machine. Our connection is close on telepathic, whether we're facing off with some fat sucking vampire, defending The X-Files department against budget cutting or are simply in a meeting with Skinner.

On the other hand, you are my...lover, I guess would be the only way to describe it, by night. Our connection on the field, as powerful as it is, is barely rival to our attraction behind closed doors.

Just as I was three years ago, I still can't get enough of you Fox Mulder. You truly are my drug of choice. Everything about you sparks a raging fire within me that I simply can't resist.

You are my one true weakness and may just be my undoing.

Sometimes, I almost swear you know exactly what you are doing. There are brief moments when your gorgeous hazel orbs become clear and I can see the man I have fallen deeply in love with over the last few years, the man who I would do anything for and who would do anything for me, rather than just his subconscious self that has become my fuckbuddy.

At first, the change made me panic. I wasn't sure whether I wanted you to know how you have been fulfilling my every sexual desire over the last few years, whether it would render our friendship, our partnership and our trust completely obliterated as I was almost certain it would.

I desperately wanted to know how much you knew and if you knew it was all real or not, if you had been wide awake just as I had been.

I feel as though you had been, at least for a while but simply dismissed the whole thing as having been a dream.

The next day at work while we were working on the murderous and inbred family, The Peacock's, case, we carried on almost completely normal.

I caught you staring, looking a little flushed if I say so myself, more often than usual but you didn't say anything.

I almost felt like confronting you, asking you whether you knew how I had woken up around midnight to find your head nestled between my legs, your lips pressed against the fabric of my panties and how later on that night, I had taken you whole into my mouth.

I didn't say anything though. Your friendship means too much to me and I wouldn't put it on the line for anything...at least until now.

I can't keep this secret from you any longer and I have two damn good reasons for it.

The first; I thought that I had taken every and all proper precautions to prevent our union bringing life into the world, but then I found myself three weeks late and soon realised that the universe had other plans for us.

Do you remember, I don't know whether you do or not, what I asked you while we were on The Peacock's case?

I asked you about your family's genetic history.

There was a reason for that.

I was freaked out, genuinely unsettled despite my forensic and medical training, about the deformations that I had seen on the poor little infant I had autopsied.

I sympathised deeply with every mother who had ever had to go through something like that with their child because it was something I myself and every woman in my condition fears.

I voiced my thoughts to you and in turn, you told me to find a man with a spotless genetic history and then start pumping out the 'little uber-Scullys' and that that particular moment was the first time you had ever seen me as a mother.

I saw sincerity in your eyes when you told me that in contrast to the previous mischievous and teasing expression that you had playing about your features only seconds before.

Your sincerity in that moment struck a chord deep within me. Maybe I wasn't the only one who wanted more from life than chasing monsters in the dark. I almost told you everything right there and then, but as per usual I held my tongue.

It was probably just wishful thinking or pregnancy hormones. There was no way that you long for parenthood the same way I do, right?

If only you had known then how close I am to pumping out my first 'little uber-Scully'. That in six months time I will be a mother, a mother to a child that will be, biologically at the very least, just as much a 'little uber-Mulder' as a 'little uber-Scully'.

That's why I need to get the courage up to tell you, Mulder. I don't even know how I will go though with telling you that we not only have been in some strange intimate relationship for three years but that you are now the father of my unborn child.

I don't even really know if you want to be a father. I don't want my child to feel as though they come second to your quest to find Samantha.

I may never have had a reason to possibly put our friendship on the line before, but this kid is now my reason. I would go to the ends of the earth for my baby and the least I can do for him or her now is make sure their father knows that they are on their way, right?

What I said before about not being in you way was true. I don't want to come between you and your quest but giving you the choice about the child you helped create is the right thing, surely?

There is abother reason why I can't keep this secret to myself anymore too, a reason I have buried deep down inside me for so long; I'm in love with you, Fox Mulder. Really completely and truly.

Sometime in the last three years between long nights down in our basement and between the sheets of grotty motel rooms, you have come to mean the absolute world to me.

I don't understand the logic of it or how I could fall for someone so fundamentally different from myself, but I did and keeping my silence about what we do in the dark is getting harder and harder in every passing day like a throbbing toothache of the mind.

I have to tell you, I have to finally come clean, don't I?

Yours always,

Scully

Georgetown, Washington

December 1996

Dear Mulder,

I got so close to telling you about our little girl today, so damn close but you found another lead on your sister's case and just like that, we were on the other side of the country following a lead that brought us, as per usual, to another dead end.

You were as obsessive as you usually are when causes related in any way to Samantha crop up and I watched as you, once again, retreated into the darkness only counting and depending on me to pull you out when you got too far.

That's why I didn't tell you, or more accurately, that was why I lied to you.

I told you our daughter was the product of some meaningless one night stand with a stranger who freaked out when he realised I was pregnant and that despite everything, I loved her and was keeping her.

You were understanding about the whole thing, Mulder and so damn supportive that you almost brought tears to my eyes.

I know you would be an amazing father if circumstances were different. Believe me, Mulder I do.

I just don't know where a child would fit in your life right now and I don't want you to have to make any choices now that you will regret down the road.

I'm afraid of being rejected by you, Mulder. Not just for my sake but for my daughter's too. And even if you do choose her over your quest, which considering you can be so damn honourable sometimes you actually might, I don't want you to resent her later.

No child deserves that.

It's easier this way for all three of us.

Yours always,

Scully.


	5. Yours No Matter What The Future Holds

Chapter 5

Arlington, Washington

April 1997

Dear Scully,

As a man who believes in aliens, monsters and government conspiracies, it probably comes as a shock that I never believed in love at first sight. After all, It took me well over a year to accept that you meant more to me than anyone who had ever walked into my life before you had, even though I have never told you so.

But my thoughts on love at first sight all changed on April the 24th 1997, a little after 4pm, when you brought all six pounds and nine ounces of the most beautiful little girl I had ever seen into the world.

A little over one month premature, waving her tiny pink fists and flailing as her world was cloaked in light, your perfect daughter, Claire Melissa Scully took her first breath and wailed at the top of her lungs.

Despite the exhausting labour you had been through, you lit up like I have never seen you do so before when you laid eyes on her.

Despite all the pain I had just witnessed you go through, I couldn't help the smile that broke out on my face.

Your happiness is so damn infectious, Scully. Believe me on that. Before Claire came into our lives, your smile was like a shooting star. Rare, beautiful and by the time you have blinked there is no sign that the was once there.

Now you're smiles twinkles like the night sky, sparklingly effortlessly. Motherhood really does seem to suit you.

They say that pregnant women and new mothers glow, but when you held her for the first time Scully, you and Claire were so bright that together you could have, at least for me, rivalled the sun.

I feel in love with her Scully, and in that moment it felt like I had fallen in love with you all over again too, faster than the speed of sound. I don't think I have ever felt anything so profound and overwhelming in my life as I looked at the two of you, despite the fact that I am still, and will always be, and outsider.

I know I'm not her father, not really, but when you finally let me hold her I felt a strong sense of peace and serenity inside that I had never felt before in my life, a deep connection with a tiny human being that I could only have imagined before I held your daughter.

Your daughter, not mine, for some reason I keep having to remind myself of that.

I looked down at you and you nodded to me encouragingly as Claire snuggled into my chest. I watched her intently, mapping out her features.

If I was ever to imagine a miniature version of you, it would be her. From her pinky porcelain colouring to the auburn downy fluff on top of her little head.

Her eyes weren't open anymore as she had drifted off but they were as blue and soulful as the ocean on a summer's day, just like her mother's. You told me her eyes could change, that all baby's start with blue eyes. But I doubt that, I think she's meant to carry that particular trait on from you.

Whoever her father is, she doesn't look like him. She only looks like you.

I find myself being glad of this for some reason, if she looked like someone else, I would have to stop pretending that there isn't some guy out there who has a biological claim on Claire that I'll never have.

Even if I was the one that you asked to stay and he was the one who left.

I can recall the night you asked me to stay in perfect detail, how you had been sick almost all day, your morning sickness having become afternoon, teatime, suppertime and night-time sickness all rolled into one. The pregnancy had been hard on you to say the least.

I'll never forget how my usually fiercely independent and fiery partner asked me to stay until she fell asleep.

You were so gross Scully but so beautiful at the same time, covered in sweat, dressed in maternity pyjamas, sporting a growing baby bump and only after managing to get your head out of the toilet.

Until that point in your pregnancy, you had been so adamant in doing everything alone, from the sonograms to the baby shopping to even the parental Lamaze classes.

Both myself and your mother had been turned down on several occasions on our offers of help. Neither of us were surprised if I'm being honest, I love you to bits Scully, but you are the most stubborn and independent person I know aside from myself.

I knew that staying the night in your bed would be crossing our unspoken boundary between professional and personal and that you might regret it in the morning.

I didn't want to do anything that would make you uncomfortable, and i still wouldn't for that matter, but in that moment you looked so sure that night that that was what you wanted.

So I slipped in next to you, wrapped my arms around you, one on your hip and the other on your baby bump, both of us completely ignoring how un-platonic the whole situation was.

I probably got the best nights sleep that I had in years with you in my arms. It felt as though all was right in the world, like I belong there and you did too.

Even though a part of me still doubts you want to be more than partners and friends.

I was a little shocked but pleased when you didn't regret asking me to stay when morning came. Your actions were quite the contrary in fact.

You invited me to come to your doctors appointment with you and seeing Claire move inside your stomach on the screen was probably one of the most incredible things I had ever seen in my life.

If there ever was a moment in my life when I entertained the idea of a higher power, it would have been that one.

I vowed to myself there and then that I would do anything to protect your daughter just as I'm dead certain that you would too.

From there on out, you let me be a little more involved in your pregnancy than I was before. I want to believe that the experience brought us closer not only as partners and friends but as people too.

The time we spent baby proofing your apartment and painting the nursery was one of the first times we did normal people things together outside of work and it felt good.

I thought I would miss you so much when you went on maternity leave that it would make me physically sick. But quickly, we slipped into a routine of us meeting after work at your apartment and I would help you...nest, I guess is what your mother would call it.

My only hope is that you let me stick around for the rest of the ride, because for the first time in my life I want to be there, truly there, for someone (or in this case two someones).

I know you don't need someone. I know because you are the most strong-willed, badass person I have ever met. But I want to be by your side, in whatever capacity you'll allow it.

Claire may not have her father in her life but she has the world's most amazing mother and the last thing I would want to do is let either of you down. Finding Samantha may be my quest in life but I'm beginning to see that you, and now Claire, have somewhere along the way become my sun, moon and stars.

Now here I am, two months after you gave birth, writing you a letter just as I have returned home after spending the evening after work with you and the little one.

Our relationship is still as it always was, best friends and, even though you aren't on the field at the moment, partners. And that's fine with me as long as it's what you want, and it seems to be what you want. I just love having the two of you in my life.

I don't know when or if you will be returning to work on the X-Files. To be honest, I wouldn't really blame you wanted to find yourself a different and safer job all together. A kid does need their mother after all.

Yours no matter the future holds,

Mulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a review. Thanks again to NikitaKaralis for betaing and previewing and talking this story through with me. Thanks to Jvisness and dm96 for reviewing. You are brilliant!


	6. Yours in body and soul

Chapter 6/p>

Georgetown, Washington DC  
September 1997

Mulder,

I think I need to start this letter with something I should have told you a long time ago, before any of this happened and before you found out, in what was probably the worst possible way imaginable, how I have betrayed your trust and confidence in the last few years.

I could say I regret it, but that would mean I regret Claire and I could never do that. She is my entire world and seeing the two of you together over the last five months has both filled me with joy and had me aching in guilt because of the secrets I have kept from you.

You deserve to be her father, Mulder and even though she is still tiny, I can already tell she loves you so much.

Although Claire, on first glance, looks a lot like me with her scarlet hair and Irish completion, I can still see so much of you in her. Her smile reminds me of yours, not to mention how her eyes have lost their bright blue hue and turned to the exact same shade of hazel that I have come to love in both of you.

But going back you the truth that I have internally denied and have withheld from you. I feel as though I can finally can not keep this from you any longer.

I love you, Mulder. As fucked up and hard to believe after everything we've been through it is, it's completely the truth. I love you and I can't do anything about it. It's a strange thing to say or even write but it's the only way to describe how you make me feel.

Before you, I chalk love down to simply being complex chemical reaction that occurs in the limbic system, but your friendship and tenderness has taught me otherwise.

I don't quite know when I realised you were so important to me. Falling for you has been like watching snow storm, you see the flakes falling but not how they are adding up. At least until your lawn in covered and you're completely snowed in until the sun comes.

But the thing is, Mulder. I'm not sure I ever want the sun to come.

I'm so sorry that you found out the truth about Claire how you did. I'm sorry that I never had the strength to tell you face to face.

No one should find out that they are a father the way you did, least of all the man who once told me that I was his one in five billion and spent night after night in my apartment helping me look after a child who, at the time, he didn't even think was his own.

We kissed that night before you found out, Mulder. Really kissed. Both of us were fully aware of our actions, albeit a little fuelled on liquid confidence from the two or three glasses of wine we shared after finally getting Claire to bed.

But mid kiss, my stomach turned. I hadn't been honest with you. But with your eyes right there, staring so deeply into mine it was easy to forget all that. Eye contact is a dangerous dangerous thing, but so so lovely. I could forget everything surrounding us, if only for a moment, when you looked at me the way you did.

And so I did.

Your touch was just, if not even more, intoxicating than usual. And for the first time, I could kiss you and pull you close to me without the inhibition and guilt that came with being intimate with you while you are asleep.

But right then with your arms around my waist, drawing me on to your lap, and mine tangled in your hair to pull you closer, you seemed to want me just as much as I wanted you.

Your lips against mine, rather than the wine, began to make me feel more lightheaded than I ever had before in my life as you plunged your tongue deeper into my mouth as though easing the truth up out of me.

At that point, I didn't know how much longer I could take it without telling you everything and in that moment I promised myself that I would.

I have never come across anything more painfully beautiful than that kiss. I wish it were something I could catch with a net or place in a book. I wish it were something I could save and share with the world so I could tell the universe: this is what it's like; this is how it feels when you completely and totally fall.

There was no place in the world that I wanted to be more.

But going with our usual one step forward and two steps back pattern that we have adopted over the years, that was where it ended. Both of us pulling away reluctantly.

I think you may have believed that kissing you was not what I wanted if your expression was anything to go by.

Mulder, if only you had known just how much I wanted you, how the thought of having you when we are both in our right senses is something that the vixen in me spends far too much time entertaining what it would be like if we were both in our even though I know how unfair it would be to both of us at the time, considering there was so many secrets and trust lost between us as of now.

In those circumstances, I think we would probably destroy one another and I would be the one most responsible for that. I hate how much kept from you, you deserved so much better from me after all we have been through together.

I was selfish to keep the truth from you, a man who never asked for anything but the truth.

With a mumbled "sorry" and "don't worry about it", we parted ways silently and awkwardly that night, me hurrying to my bedroom and you mumbling something about staying on the couch despite the fact that we usually share a bed when ever you come over.

A few hours later, you knocked on my door and before too long everything was as it usually is between us at night

I was a little sexually frustrated after finally kissing you and despite my conflicted feelings and reached for you hungrily.

With lust filled eyes, you enthusiastically made do of my pyjamas and underwear, as I let my hands wander your already beautifully naked body, enjoying the feeling of having you flush against me, until we were entangled body and soul.

And just like that, I hated myself all over again.

Posed and ready at my entrance, I watched you slide into me carefully but still passionately. I reached up and threaded my fingers through your hair and down your body, lightly scratching your back as you began pumping into me at a gloriously steady pace, exploding inside when we both finally came.

That was when the baby monitor sprang to life, Claire's nightly wails echoing around my relatively small apartment.

Your expression going from one of lust to one of confusion, you slid out of me, jerking slightly as your eyes cleared. You looked across the bed at me from where you were kneeling near the end, your voice low and barely audible over Claire's cries. "Scully is this real? ", you asked, in that moment looking more like a vulnerable little boy that the man who had me moaning in pleasure only moments before.

I vaguely remember nodding the affirmative, causing your eyes to fill with dread before you asked if you had hurt me or worse...if you had forced yourself on me.

I quickly shook my head and assured you that that wasn't the case, that you would never hurt me and I proceeded to jump out of bed to grab my robe, my heart thumping in panic as I hurried out the door to Claire's nursery.

I could feel my skin crawl with dread as I picked Claire up, grabbing her bottle from beside her crib. Shaking slightly, I cooed softly to settle her down and began to feed her, aware that you were now standing behind me. I could feel your panicky hitched breath on the nape of my neck as we watched our daughter finish her midnight feeding.

Claire gurgled up at us innocently, completely oblivious to what was going on between us, the two people she trusted and depended on more than anyone else in her whole world.

A part of me wanted us to keep looking at her so we wouldn't have to look at one another. I didn't think I would be able to bear the hurt I knew I would see in your eyes.

The hurt that I had caused.

I chanced a glance up at you and my heart broke at the betrayal I saw written on your face as you truly, truly, looked upon your daughter for the first time, recognising the physical traits that you passed down to her.

I won't ever forget the next words that came out of your mouth. I have been replaying them over and over again in my mind since they fell from your lips. The moment you uncovered a truth that you never thought you would and discovered the cover up that was a lot closer to home than usual. "This has been going on a while, hasn't it? Claire's mine, isn't she?"

You didn't seem particularly angry but I know you as good as anybody, better even and I could sense the hurt you were feeling, I could see it in your eyes and in your tone of voice. Hell, I think I could even feel it radiating off of you.

As much as you love Claire and believe me, I know you do with your whole heart; I could sense that you wanted me to say 'no', to tell you that you were talking crazy like I did practically everyday that we were on the field together.

You didn't want to believe that I would betray you like that, that I would let you down and hide something so significant from you in the way I have. Hell, I don't want to believe it either even though I know it to be true.

I tried so hard to tell you that I was sorry, that I should have told you right from the moment I became pregnant or even sooner.

But I didn't.

The words just kept on sticking in my throat, making my stomach churn painfully as though I was about to throw up. I felt sick with myself for hurting you like I did.

But I still said nothing.

My silence was answer enough for you and just like that you left, mumbling something about needing to think.

When I heard the door of my apartment slam shut, knowing you were gone, I felt something deep inside me shatter and I broke down in tears.

I had lost you and I had no one but myself to blame. I never imagined our partnership would end like this.

Because of my selfishness and fears.

I always hated crying, it left you exhausted with bloodshot eyes and no answers as to how to resolve the issues that were upsetting you. Ever since I was a kid, I learned to bottle up my emotions deep inside because they distracted me from thinking rationally.

That night however, I let myself sob until I accidentally ended up making Claire cry too.

So picking my broken pieces back up from the ground, I pulled myself together for her sake. I may have hurt you and myself and our relationship but I wasn't going to upset our daughter too.

I haven't heard from you since that night, Mulder, apart from the lawyer's letter I received about a week after the incident, where you asked for joint custody of Claire.

I know I shouldn't be surprised, my actions have destroyed the trust we had carefully cultivated over the years but I never thought it would come to that between us.

Four years together and it all ends with a letter from a fancy lawyer and a whole lot of unspoken words.

No matter what you may believe right now, I hope you know that I wish I could take back every moment where I didn't tell you about Claire and about how our nightly activities over the years was what brought her into the world.

No matter what you may believe, I have loved you through everything that has happened and will continue to do so even if you hate me.

...and I need you to know that I'm sorry, so sorry, for everything. You and I have always protected each other and had each others backs in the face of our adversaries and I'm sorry our friendship, partnership and relationship had to crash and burn so badly.

I said before that I feel as of I have exploited you and that's still true, I still feel that way. But we have a beautiful daughter so I would not take it back even if I could, just the circumstances in which it happened.

You should never have spent a moment believing that Claire was not ours, both of ours. And I should never have doubted your love for her and your desire to be there for her as her dad.

I shouldn't have feared losing you from telling the truth, because I have now lost you anyway because of a lie. Most of all, I regret that. I regret not having the courage to own up to my feelings for you and the truth of Claire's parentage from day one.

I hope someday in the future, when this mess has in some way sorted itself out, that we can mend our trust...however something in me doubts that because I wouldn't trust me again either

Yours in body and soul,

Scully.


	7. Yours Always  (Or So It Seems)

Arlington, Washington

October 1997

Dear Scully

Even after everything we've been through, you're still 'dear' to me. Fuck that!

Let's try again, shall we?...

Dana, (it's probably best if I call you by your first name from now on, even if it's just in a letter I know you'll never read)

Before, you were always 'Scully' (or even 'My Scully' in my head during brief moments of indulgence or possessiveness) but that was once upon a time before everything got complicated. It'll be easier if I call you Dana now, easier because it will separate what we were from what we now are.

(If what we are now is anything at all)

To be honest, it hurts so damn much to think my only friend kept such a secret from me for so long. It hurts because it mattered, because we mattered, because our friendship mattered.

Or at least it did to me, and I had always thought the feeling was mutual.

(I don't know what to think now though)

I'm a broken man, Dana. If we are to believe that all of us are puppets in a larger game called life, controlled by fate or God or who the hell knows what else, than I must admit that I feel as though nearly all the strings inside of me have snapped and my wooden limbs are almost limply dangling before you.

The key word being 'nearly' considering how as every new day goes by, I'm finding new reasons to continue my fight and to continue to believe; The greatest reason being Claire's presence in my life and finally knowing the truth about her creation, the union of two recently estranged perfect opposites.

She's a ray of sunshine, Dana. Which I'm quite sure that you know yourself just as well as I do.

Her first smiles and giggles that I heard and witnessed brought new meaning into my life, a truth that I never knew I had been searching for. I guess you could say that she has brought out the resident 'papa bear' that had been sleeping dormant inside me for who knows how long.

Claire has become the new driving force behind my crusade, I want her to be able to grow up in a slightly less corrupted world, a safer world. She deserves to grow up in a world where she doesn't have to fear the darkness that has followed us for the last number of years.

And I will strive to do whatever is within my power to make that happen.

The hours I spend with her each week, as far away as possible from what used to be our basement office you'll be glad to know, have meant more to me than you could imagine.

Spending time with Claire, knowing she is both mine and ours, it means everything.

She's so damn beautiful and already unbelievably like her mother. (Something which has been both a blessing and a curse to me in the past few months considering my confliction whether to mourn the loss of you in my life or to continue being angry with you for keeping the truth just out of my reach for so long).

Sometimes, I am so acutely aware of your absence that it feel like a physical gaping hole has been drilled in my chest.

And if I'm bring honest: alone as I am in my apartment with only my fish for company right now, I can admit to currently being in the middle of one of those times.

Living without you has become kind of like living with a constantly fresh bullet wound, but has proved to be a much harder ailment to be cured from.

I can't seem to get the void within me stitched up and painkillers won't do anything to help.

I see you sometimes at Quantico and can hand on heart admit that seeing you hurts like hell.

We never stop to talk, but simply pass each other like ships in the night, sometimes with a brief nod and other times without even one sorry glance in each others direction.

But I see you, Scully. There is no way in hell that a time would ever come in our lives where I could be in your presence and not see you, even if noticing you is like a stab in the chest for me.

I couldn't miss you in a room if i tried; you're my supernova of an ex partner and baby mama. Looking away from you would be like trying to get a blind man to see the light or like freefalling from space and managing to live.

But that doesn't mean that we talk to each other.

I don't really know what I would say to you if we actually stopped to talk (you and I have never been masters of communication, huh?).

But there is so much that's been left unsaid, Dana.

I want to tell you how much you have hurt me, how betrayed I feel and how confused and angry I am at both you and myself.

Yes, Dana. I am angry that myself too. What kind of father doesn't recall the conception of his own baby? And what kind of man doesn't remember making love to the love of his life? (even if he is struggling to rationalise why said woman is the love of his life)

But one the flip side I want be able to talk to you about our baby girl and how, at a little over six months old, she's already growing too fast for her old dad's liking. (I know you would get that because I know you. You probably feel the same way)

But in the end of the day, I know if we spoke all I would be able to tell you is that I've missed you.

(And that's honestly why I never stop to talk. Maybe it's why neither of us do )

The profiler in me knows that neither of us want to appear even the slightest bit vulnerable in each others presence anymore, that speaking to one another would have both of our protective walls come crumbling down. (Now we couldn't have something like that, could we?)

And frankly, I think that's sad after everything we have faced together. Sad but true.

Nowadays, If you didn't know any better, one would swear we were complete strangers and not two people who had a daughter together and had spent almost every hour of every day together for over four years.

I have a new partner now, assigned to the X-Files by our dear assistant director Skinner (and maybe that's a damn good thing even though I go back and forward on it lost constantly).

We knew each other before, Diana and I, and she knows of my condition so things won't become as they were with you.

She thinks a lot like I do, jumping to what you would consider the most ridiculous conclusion, and agrees with me more than you did on cases.

On one hand, that makes my life a little easier but I no longer have someone to push me and to challenge me the eay only you could and no one for me to push and challenge in return.

I don't fully trust Diana Fowley as I used to trust you, but I reckon what you and I had was pretty damn unique by most FBI standards.

Diana and I were together for a few years when I still worked in Violent Crimes and she was there when I discovered and became obsessed with my work on The X-Files.

But one day she just upped and left right out of the blue and I never heard from her again until now.

That's why I don't know wheather to trust her again.

Because I don't trust her not to desert me like she did before.

Like you did.

Sometimes I still see your signature at the bottom of the autopsy reports and wonder what your thoughts on my current crazy cases are, or if you are thinking about me and the x-files (you probably aren't) and feeling the same pang of loss as I am when I think of you.

Your betrayal hurts but as angry as I am with you, your absence pains me a hell of a lot more.

From time to time, I still look to my left and right when I'm out of town on cases and am in the midst of being confronted by officers from local sheriff departments, half expecting you to be right there beside me as you always have been, watching my six.

Sometimes I find myself imagining your reaction to my latest signature spooky theory and promptly begin building up my case against your strict science and rationalism, only to find you're no longer there to challenge me on my beliefs.

I miss you, Scully even though there are times that I wish I didn't and the mere thought of being near you makes me feel nothing but frustration and betrayal.

You were never just any one thing to me. You were my partner, my best friend, the love of my life and you will always be the mother of my daughter.

Dammit, Scully. How the hell could I not love the woman that brought Claire into the world?

How could I not love the woman who saved my ass more times than either of us has bothered counting?

I do, Scully. After everything I still do.

I just don't know wheather I should trust myself on this or not.

Wheather i should trust myself to love you after all you've kept from me.

Yours always or so it seems,

Mulder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks once again to NikitaKaralis for betaing and previewing this chapter. I 100% appreciate it! And another huge thanks to everyone for their lovely reviews so far. Your kind words were awesome motivation!


	8. Yours in Love and Pain

Georgetown, Washington DC

August 1997

 

 

Mulder,

I wasn't going to let this happen again. But it seems to me that fate had other plans for me. For us.

Trust me Mulder, I had no intentions of keeping anything of this nature from you again but I fear sharing this with you. You have already lost so much...your sister, your father, me (in a way at least).

I couldn't (and still don't know if I can) add to that pain, especially if I believed, at least for a while, that I could shoulder that loss alone. I know this may be hard to believe after everything we've been through but I don't want you to get hurt again. There is no one's welfare that means more to me than yours and Claire's.

I took everything in me to keep this from you from the last two months, I could barely look at you on the rare occasion we passed one another in Quantico, let alone initiate a conversation so serious.

But I have to share this with you. No more secrets.

Shortly after you and I became...estranged, I began to feel things I hadn't felt since I had been pregnant with Claire...nausea, cravings the whole nine yards.

I wanted to tell you as soon as I found out but knew that I had to, at the very least, try to make things right first...for Claire's sake, for our second baby's sake and for the sake of the friendship we had for nearly five years. I had planned to tell you everything on week ten with news of a clean bill of health for our son or daughter.

But he or she never made it quite that far and since then I have been cursing God for his cruelty, for deciding he needed our baby more than either of us did, something that I can't even imagine possible.

A whole new life had been growing inside of me again. A while new life with endless possibilities before him or her. A little sibling for Claire.

Gone.

It happened at work, about six weeks after we had last been together. I remember a searing blinding pain down my back and in my side, spots of blood in my underwear. I barely had the strength to get myself to hospital, but I did get there.

Only to find our baby with no heartbeat.

Gone.

I know that was when I should have told you, but I just couldn't bring myself to. I was hurt so much inside from loosing a child, I just couldn't have you share in the same heartache. I couldn't do it to you at the time.

Pregnancy is a time when you feel, quite literally, full of life and after losing our second child I don't think I have ever felt so empty...it was the loneliest form of grief I have ever felt and one I hope more than anything I'll never have to face again.

Even now, two months later, I still feel the same emptiness, torn up inside in ways I can't even explain but I had to hold it together for Claire.

She needs her mom and I need her. I need to make sure that I will never fail her, never do wrong by her, even if I couldn't have done more wrong by her father in the past. By you, Mulder. By the man who was, for quite a long time, my best friend in the whole world.

I thought I could protect you but I don't think I can anymore and I'm not sure if protecting you from the harsh, cruel reality of this truth is something you would want me to do. We lost a child, Mulder and Claire lost her brother or sister. He or she was as much your loss as mine. He or she was ours.

So I'm telling you, as the father of our lost little angel.

I'm so sorry I waited until now.

Yours in love and pain,

Dana.


	9. Yours Unfinished

Arlington, Washington DC

January 1999

Holy Shit, Scully. Where do I even start? How do I even start?

I'm writing you this to let you know how the last few...days, weeks, months (Hell, maybe even years) have changed things, yet again, for me and more importantly, since our communication has always been well below par to say the least, how it had made me...feel I guess.

I know, Scully that this makes me sound like a shrink, perhaps it seems like my four years studying psychology at Oxford is finally showing up somewhere but I guess we need to talk about this sometime.

I suppose this starts in the way everything alway has between you and I...with a case.

A case that revolved around a rubbing from an ancient artefact that held the universe's greatest secrets, an artifact I believed may have been of extra-terrestrial origin.

I heard around that you're teaching these days, Scully and so I stopped by and watched you for a bitter-sweet second from outside the door of your classroom at Quantico.

I wish I could tell you that I really was so smooth a guy that I had come to mend fences with you, but we would both know that would be a lie.

Honestly, I was getting up the courage to talk about the case, a case I wanted your medical opinion on because it was beginning to affect me...biologically I guess, if my come and go pounding headache and the ringing in my ears are anything to go by.

From out there in the corridor, you looked just like the woman I remembered; Claire's mother and the woman I have been in love with for so damn long.

But then the hardest thought of all struck me, something that had been playing around the back of my mind ever since that night in your apartment...What if don't know you anymore, not after everything that has happened between us...What if I never did.

I felt like you must have felt, despite your cool professional exterior, back when you first walked into the basement back in '93, uncertain and approaching a complete stranger.

I know it's crazy since we have a beautiful daughter together but it's true...I'm not sure if I even know you anymore, Scully and that hurts like hell (almost more then what you did, to be honest).

But despite all uncertainty, I pushed down the handle of the door.

You looked up from your desk, surprise clearly written in your face and you breathed out my last name as though you could hardly believe that I had broken the non spoken pact of silence between us.

(To be frank, I thought I would never break it either)

In that moment, I almost felt my anger and resentment for you completely slipped away. I almost decided to drop my original intentions of talking about the case and just talk about our little girl.

I almost told you how, despite everything, being away from each other like this just feels wrong. I almost told you I missed you. I almost told you I loved you. I almost told how disappointed I was and how betrayed and hurt you made me feel.

Almost.

Because you know that smooth ass guy I told you about-I'm not him.

Much like always, we ignored the biggest elephants in the room and only spoke about the case.

It's so typical of you and me, Scully. One step forward and three steps back, but now I feel like we've been driven back so far that neither of us, both completely derailed, know where to even begin.

So we started with a case, because professional territory just felt so damn familiar.

Talkinh with you, My head felt clearer then it had in days. I could hardly feel the niggling throb in the back of my head that had been there ever since Diana and I first found the rubbings off the artifact. I can never bounce ideas off of anyone as well as I can off of you. There is a certain rhythm to our banter, that even though we may completely disagree, their is still the undeclining respect between two intellects.

It seems to me that no matter what we go through in our personal lives, it doesn't affect the balance and harmony of our working relationship. Time doesn't affect it either. It's like nothing affects it.

It felt so good to debate the nature of our reality with you again.

But it felt even better when, about twenty minutes into our conversation, your hungry lips were unexpectedly on mine.

Nibbling, tugging, pulling, sucking, biting a raging battle for dominance between two stubborn souls, crushing against each other in a vicious attempt to become one, to be whole again.

I'm not sure which of us first initiated the contact but I don't think either of us cared how much of a bad idea this could be, about how we really should be working on rebuilding some sort of connection between before we let this happen.

I thought all of this hazily at the back of mind, but all I could feel was the swell of your breasts against my chest as I fumbled forward to unbutton your no nonsense work blouse and run my hands upon your warm porcelain skin beneath.

Why on earth did this feel so damn good?

Your fingers were buried deep in my hair and you frantically pushed off my suit jacket, letting it drop to the ground as I slid a hand up your tight little pencil skirt and lifted your tiny powerhouse of a body up in my arms, sliding you into a sitting position on to your desk.

My head was spinning and I was drunk on you.

You wrapped your legs around my waist until I was pressed rock hard against your core and we moaned aloud in unison, not caring if there was a class in with the lecturer next door as you unzipped my flies and I tugged at the already sodden lace of your panties, both of us seeking the kind of release that we could only hope to achieve together.

How many times did I imagine doing this on a different desk; one down in what was once our basement office, surrounded by pictures of UFOs and with a woman who I loved more than life and trusted more than I trusted myself?

But there we were, getting hot and heavy like a pair of horny teenagers in your classroom office in Quantico, surrounded by medical journals and autopsy reports and as much as I missed you, and still miss you, I don't even know if I can love you again or place my trust in you again.

I imagined something emotional and raw and loving but this was pure physical need.

A total paradox to my every fantasy of becoming one with you, Scully.

Our relationship has changed so much since then, from friends and partners to parents of a child who don't even speak, almost as though we skipped the happily married part and went straight for the estranged divorced couple who's only tie to one another is their shared child.

Holy Fuck Scully, I really wish it wasn't like that. I wish I could hold you in my arms and not imagine all the times I had done that in my sleep. I wish I could kiss your swollen lips and not think about how I don't remember the conception of our little girl.

Afterwards, you gently pulled away from me with tears welling up, making little kaleidoscopes in your eyes, and began fixing your thoroughly wrinkled clothes and dishevelled hair.

You didn't look at me...at all, but I could see your emotion resolve crumbling, I reached out and touched your arm like I had so many time before and asked if you were okay.

You told me your were fine, a sure sign that you were anything but...

Then I told you one of things that I had wanted to say ever since I walked through your classroom door...I told you I missed you.

And despite everything, despite how angry and betrayed I felt, and still feel, I knewes then that I was telling you the truth.

Your chin quivered slightly and your eyes looked far away, haunted by your own thoughts. The whole scene reminded me two damn much of our run in with Dornie Pfaster years ago.

That was when you let your tears fall and despite everything we had been through, I wrapped my arms around you, hoping to provide you with even the smallest amount of comfort as you let yourself, this one time, to be completely vulnerable with me.

It was so beautiful but almost frightening at the same time, to see you that way , and in contradiction to everything, I learned that I still hurt whenever you hurt.

Your pain is still my pain, Scully. As fucked up as it may sound.

No matter what, you are the mother of my child and you are the woman who watched my six for five years, you still sacrificed so much on my account both professionally and personally.

Maybe I do still love you, who knows?

We went our separate ways again shortly after we managed to let go of each other, you never did tell me what had managed to rattled you so much that I was afraid that you, the one person I had hardly ever seen fall apart and never like this, were breaking in my arms.

I still don't know...

But now I'm sitting at home alone, back in my apartment, and I'm back to square one, confused at where our relationship is after today.

And I'm finding it hard to concentrate, even on thoughts of the perfectly sinful act we committed on your desk, which is saying something from me.

My head is beginning to pound painfully again and my ears are beginning to ring and I'm vaguely aware that I never got around to asking you for your medical opinion on what is happening to me.

I don't know how much longer I can keep my eyes open, Scully...and I'm not sure if I should pick up the phone to call you...


End file.
